Have you noticed yourself starting to gain a few early pounds of “winter weight” already?

At summer’s end, nature dishes out a series of influences that is best described as a “perfect storm” for gaining weight. Let’s dissect this storm and look at some strategies to safely navigate those unwanted pounds.

Early Storm Damage: Nature is making a concerted effort to store an insulating layer of fat at summer’s end to prepare for winter.

With proper preparation, understanding, and respect for this storm, its surge can actually offer many benefits to the body. Unchecked, this storm will pack on those pounds.

Keep reading to learn how you can get the most out of this seasonal change, without storing excess weight you don’t need!

Eaters Beware

Summer’s end offers a plethora of ripe fruit just begging to be eaten. The fructose in fruit easily converts into fat in the liver, which is much needed insulation to endure a cold winter. Omnivores like bears and humans would tend to gorge on sweet, ripe fruit to the point of excess—just think of how many apples fall from just one tree! Yes, it seems we were meant to eat them, but a nice healthy layer of insulating fat may result.

The nice thing about this fruit fat is that it is distributed equally throughout the body for insulation, rather than camping out mainly on the belly, hips and thighs.

These fruits also cleanse the gut with fruit fiber. A little too much fruit triggers a loose stool, which is nature’s way of dispelling accumulated heat from summer. This is much the same as when your child gets a fever accompanied by diarrhea—the diarrhea is there to dispel the heat (fever).

Bad Timing

As summer’s high temperatures build up in the body, in an attempt not to overheat, the digestive strength becomes weaker this time of year. Conversely, in the winter when it’s cold outside, the body’s internal heaters turn on to keep us warm and to better digest the more dense winter foods like meat, root veggies and grains.

Nature’s Intention

With the digestive strength weakening this time of year, nature offers a harvest of easy-to-digest foods that have been ripening on the vine all summer long. The fruits and veggies from the garden are pre-digested, or cooked, from the sun.

Never Got That Memo

Unfortunately, most folks are squeezing in the last couple of barbeques and eating fried chicken, ribs, burgers, fries, shakes, ice cream and, of course, it wouldn’t be a barbeque without some beer!

Sadly, as far as I can tell, none of these were naturally ripened on the vine and thus, are extremely hard to digest, even in the winter when the digestion is at its best. The perfect storm just got bigger as we continue to eat foods that we don’t have the digestive juice to digest well.

The result: weight gain.

Storm Surge

Just when we thought the storm was weakening, it instead gets stronger. With cooler nights and winter just around the corner, the brain starts to crave certain tastes that will help insulate the body and slow, or calm, the nervous system for winter. You guessed it—the brain starts craving sweet and salty tastes. Each individual brain has a menu of favorite foods that will provide those tastes, such as chips, desserts, chocolates, coffees, breads and carbs, carbs, carbs.

When the brain picks a food from that menu, all willpower goes out the window and we find ourselves eating way too many of those fatty foods we just know we shouldn’t be eating!

Second Storm Surge

As the days get shorter, the metabolism starts to slow down in preparation for shorter days and longer nights. With a slower metabolism, the body burns calories less efficiently and will store more fat.

Slower metabolism encourages the body to get more sleep and have less daytime activity, which also adds to fewer calories burned and more fat stored.

The Final Surge

Naturally, the fall harvest is abundant. Once the perishables have been eaten, the foods with more density that can store and last through the winter remain. These foods, like grains, nuts, seeds and root vegetables, are late harvesters, giving nature time to build more density in the form of concentrated proteins and fats.

While very insulating, these dense foods are also harder to digest and more easily stored as fat.

The Good News! Navigating weight gain’s perfect storm is about building an even layer of winter fat, rather than excess in the wrong places.

Storm Protection: Know It’s Coming and Be Prepared

1. Give yourself permission to eat lots and lots of ripe veggies and yes, it’s okay to eat those fruits as well. Better a small healthy layer of insulating fat than the damage that a month of binging on barbeque and vacation food can do. Fill up on the good stuff!

2. This time of year, the accumulated heat will dehydrate us. As the brain often perceives thirst as hunger, we start eating. Try to drink half of your ideal body weight in ounces of water per day.

3. Boost digestive strength, so that if you’re eating the heavier foods, you help your system digest and process it. Consider one capsule of both Warm Digest and Beet Cleanse about 15 minutes before meals with a full glass of water. This will help to boost digestive strength before the meal.

4. Fear not those extra pounds! October is a great detox season and a great time to lose the pounds and fully reset the digestive strength you will need this winter to stay healthy. Consider our Group Colorado Cleanse Event, which starts October ninth.

About Dr. John Douillard

John Douillard, DC, has published over 500 health videos and articles that are available on his website. Receive these valuable health reports in your inbox - sign up for free! He has written six books, produced numerous health DVDs and CDs, and has formulated his own line of organic health care products. He is the former Director of Player Development for the New Jersey Nets NBA team. He has been featured on the Dr. Oz Show, in Woman's World Magazine and in Yoga Journal. He currently directs the LifeSpa Ayurvedic Center in Boulder, CO, where he lives with his wife and six children. Join Dr. John for the (Free!) 3 Season Diet Challenge for 12 months of seasonal guidance.

I winter the weather is very chill we love to eat most of the junk food which is very hot!! So in turn to keep our selves warm we do prefer of eating the junk which which is resulting in gaining the weight!!

This has been incredibly helpful! Every year at the beginning of October, like clockwork, I instantly gain weight. Not only was this article useful and informative, it's also normalizing/validating, which makes me feel a hell of a lot better for what happens to my body every year. Thanks for sharing this!